Prescription For Addiction---You Have a Voice… Use IT!

Prescription for Addiction exposes the ugly and dangerous side of pharmaceutical companies that are thriving financially in the United States. This film includes multiple interviews of people who have been negatively affected by pharmaceutical drugs. Some of the people have experienced a large part of their lives homeless and as drug addicts, and they share their dramatic and harrowing stories with us. While making this film, the director's elderly cousin in Kentucky tells him that he has just been to his doctor for memory loss, and the 30-day prescription which the doctor wrote costs the cousin $1,200 per month, out of pocket...and he paid it.

Over 90 percent of school shooters in the past 15 years have been on or in withdrawal from psychiatric meds, so why hasn't your evening news programs told you this? Could it be because their program advertisers are the pharmaceutical companies?

One of the most daunting modern crises is man’s relationship with big pharmaceutical companies and prescription drugs. While mankind faces the results of an industry gone almost bazaaringly to the side of profit, he/she also faces the debilitating side effects and dependency on those pharmaceuticals prescribed by doctors who are caught up in a system perpetuated by these organizations striving for profit at the cost of personal health.

Unfortunately, some humans seem to have lost their ability to reason for themselves and in the process, lost long held knowledge of herbal remedies that cured maladies from whooping cough to broken bones. The shunning of indigenous ways for modern medicine has left mankind at the mercy of doctors whose primary course of study has been focused on writing prescriptions and performing surgery. This epidemic has left humans vulnerable and extremely unhealthy.

Prescription for Addiction is a film that delves into this madness and gives insight into the results of a lifestyle laden heavily with multiple prescriptions, and provides reasonable solutions to those wanting to get off the pharmaceutical treadmill. Directed by documentary filmmaker Ed Breeding, this film really explores the problem as it stands today and exposes the minefield modern man must deal with - akin to cutting a path through the jungle on each visit to a doctor.

Doctors of today rely heavily on prescription drugs almost to the exclusion of common sense. Pills can not and were not meant to be cure-alls. Yet step into most doctors’ offices and that is the message generated by 10-minute visits, lack of communication and listening, and over-scheduled calendars of doctors who only treat body parts as opposed to the whole well being of an individual. What is left for the doctor to do but dole out prescriptions as if they were candy and move on to the next patient?

As you will see in the film, many addicts are created through such careless practices. Mr. Breeding takes the viewer through the “system” and what the system supports. Not only are pharmaceutical companies to blame, but insurance companies play a major part as well. Natural cures are shunned and chemicals are relied upon to the point of no return in many cases. America’s healthcare system is more about managing disease than maintaining health.

Naturopathic Dr. Hilda Chavez points out many different types of herbs which support the restoration of health whereas chemicals can only mask or perpetuate the problem because they are synthetics trying to copy the natural. One of those herbs is the steadily growing-in-popularity herb called cannabis. The healing properties in cannabis alone have cured everything from digestive problems to cancer and yet remain largely unacknowledged by the mainstream medical community. Cannabis, along with other natural remedies such as acupuncture and massage, has been able to relieve pain that chemicals simply cannot assuage. Because many people mistake cannabis as a drug instead of a plant, it is blamed for the journey into hard drugs, however, nothing could be further from the truth. Many people manage their illness and pain with cannabis without ever craving or delving into anything more that may harm them, and contrary to popular belief, cannabis is non-addictive, which cannot be said for so many pharmaceuticals.

Through his practice, Dr. Aurthur Berkson explains how he has gone from 10-minute visits to 1 ½ hour visits and encourages his patients to become their own doctors through integrating lifestyle with or without medicines, and how this is improving the health of his patients.

Perhaps one of the most shocking facts to come out of this film is the tie-in made by nearly every shooting rampage in a public setting; the shooters have all either been on psychotropic drugs or where coming off psychotropic drugs, a fact news media omits from typical sensationalistic reporting. Psychotropic drugs include prescriptions commonly given for depression like Paxil, Prozac, Zoloft and Elavil to name a few. This statistic alone should be a red flag to society that pharmaceuticals are not the answer. Sadly, many children are prescribed these drugs at a younger and younger age. Opiates, such as Codeine, Oxycodone, Hydrocodone are highly addictive and were once rarely given to small children, but are now given more frequently in an attempt to provide a quick fix so doctors and parents can move on with their busy lives instead of investing time in more natural and healthy healing. This attitude fails our children and fails our society. Parents must take a more active role in supervising what cures doctors are prescribing their children.

Also in the film is councilor and talented musician Matt Mercer. Mr. Mercer gives a thoughtful and well-rounded interview and reminds us we wouldn’t have pharmaceuticals today without the natural foundation of plants, but perhaps his most poignant statement is “It takes people to heal people” and, most assuredly that is as true today as it was hundreds of years ago.

This film is an attempt by Mr. Breeding to bring this staggering problem to light and open it up for discussion - imploring society to address this seriousness which plagues most everyone on a broad scale. Prescription for Addiction calls out to society as a whole, to slow down and think about what we are doing to our bodies.

Watching this film may help you re-think your relationship with your personal physician and guide you to question if the prescriptions you are being given are actually what your body needs to heal. Assuming responsibility for your own body by using your voice along with your physician’s skill could put you on the path to a healthier lifestyle. There are more and more naturopathic, homeopathic and holistic doctors available whose practices integrate natural and modern medicine to achieve the best overall health for individuals. Wouldn’t we all benefit by bringing more health and happiness into our lives?